Moving from drafting to revision is a huge milestone to celebrate. So many books never quite get there, and flounder somewhere in the drafting stage. If you’re in revisions, getting ready to tackle revisions, or if you just are starting to see the finish line of the drafting stage and wondering what is next—take the win! You’re in the thick of it now; you’ve got this. The book isn’t hypothetical anymore, it’s real and in progress and taking concrete shape. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s all down hill from here. Revision is a process that many writers underestimate—you could say that revision is its own hill.
In our series on revision so far, we’ve reviewed establishing what kind of draft you have, what really makes a memoir good, and when (and if) to get feedback. In this fourth and final post of our revision series, we are resetting your expectations and strategies for revision so you can tackle this crucial stage of writing with clear eyes.
Before we get into today’s post, we wanted to ask—do you have a plan for actually finishing your memoir? If not, we know you aren’t making the progress you hoped for. That’s why we developed The Memoir Method Checklist. This free guide (and video training!) will take you through every single step you need from idea to published marketable book. Grab it now at https://pageandpodium.com/checklist
Top-Down, Not Through
If your assumption about revision is that you will be going through your manuscript, starting from the beginning of your draft and going page by page improving it as you go—that’s not revision. That’s editing.
Revision doesn’t go throughyour manuscript, but rather it goes top-down. In the same way that developing your book starts with a big picture view of the forest and then works down into trees, revision starts back up top with that 10,000 foot view. When you’re tackling revisions, taking time to develop an honest view of the state of your work in progress is an important first step. In our post about the different types of rough drafts, you might have thought that the “Chaos Draft” would be the “worst” kind of draft to have, but that’s not the case. Each kind of draft will have its own challenges, and each individual book will have hurdles that only you will have to figure out how to navigate. A chaos draft isn’t a bad thing to have—it just means you have a lot of material to work with. It’s not a kind of draft I bother trying to avoid having or working with. In reality, the hardest kind of draft to work with is the painted sandcastle. This is simply because that kind of draft happens when writers spend a lot of grueling, detail-oriented time on surface level concerns. Essentially, it’s what happens when you skip revision in favor of editing. That revision still needs to happen—and it will likely mean you have to go through that editing process all over again.
Four ways to set up your revision process
Revision is a process that deserves its due time, attention, and energy. It’s different from drafting and its different from editing—but it’s actually where all the real magic happens. It’s where you finally close the gap between that sparkling, beautiful, precious but delicate idea and the real, concrete, cohesive and powerful book. Revision comes with its own challenges and sometimes its own heartaches. Cuts, shuffles, reframes, adding new sections—these tasks are not easy, but they can’t be bypassed. If you followed a strong strategy for developing your structure, you can usually save yourself having to do a complete rewrite, but no amount of development and planning will allow you to step directly from drafting to editing. To help set yourself up for a successful revision process, there are four ways we want you to think about revision.
Don’t Skip Grits
Writing, like any creative process, is at its heart a craft. Sometimes we lose sight of the elements of craft in writing with all the vulnerability and honest work that it takes to get the material on the page. If you think about writing in comparison to another craft like woodworking, it’s a bit easier to see the truth about the nature of the process. In woodworking, it’s a commonly understood truth that you shouldn’t “skip grits” when sanding and smoothing a newly built piece. You start with the roughest grit needed for the type of wood, and gradually move towards a finer grit, ending in that soft result of wood that is as lovely to touch as it is to look at. Impatient woodworkers might be tempted to skip down grits, but if you try to sand rough wood with a fine grit, the wood is more likely to ruin the sandpaper than actually become smooth.
Writing works the same way. This means that during revision, you need to learn how to be okay with that there will be some roughness while you work. When you move pieces about or reframe scenes in different ways, it’s going to leave seams and areas that might give you splinters. This is okay—trust the process. You’ll get to the fine grit in its due time.
Let go of what it is
Finishing a first draft is something huge to celebrate. It’s an amazing win that not everyone gets to experience. Revel in it, brag a little bit, treat yourself appropriately. And then, say a very gentle goodbye to that first draft. In the process of revision, it’s going to change. It won’t be that same book anymore, not exactly. If you hold on too tight to the way it is, you might prevent it from becoming what it could be. For revision to be effective, we need to be willing for things to get messier before it gets better. When one element of a book needs to change, it’s like pulling on a thread—it’s going to change everything around it, too. A first draft shouldn’t be handled with care like a breakable thing. Get ready to get your hands dirty.
Greater satisfaction is coming
Hopefully, while you were writing that first draft, you had some moments of that drafter’s high. It doesn’t happen every session, but when the writing’s going well there’s nothing quite else like it. I’ve bever experienced a “runners high” but I suspect the sensations are not totally dissimilar. The words not only just feel right, but you are making discoveries about yourself and your message along the way that make it even richer and more essential than you felt when you started out. It can be hard to move out of that drafting stage and into one where you’re making real changes, especially to the writing you did when you felt that drafter’s high. It can even feel like violence—there’s a reason why “kill your darlings” is such evergreen writing advice.
It’s okay, though, because there’s a reviser’s high, too. As you return to that 10,000 foot view and start working your draft into something more impactful through conflict and change, clearer and more dialed into your message, and engaging from beginning to end—you will start to feel it click into place. It feels different from drafter’s high, and different still from editor’s high. But that satisfaction of when you’re making something work on all cylinders is where the real magic happens. You’ll feel it when you put in the work.
Avoid black and white thinking
Logically you know that not all books fall into either “best book on this subject of all time” of “unworthy trash” categories. It can be hard, though, not to think that way sometimes, especially since you also know that publishing is very competitive. Even more competitive is winning reader’s attention so that they invest their precious and limited time in reading your book. But the way to tackle that competition comes later, when you publish and promote your book. It requires a different set of skills and thinking.
In revision, there’s no such thing as a “lost cause” or a “sure thing.” The question is how much work it will take to get it to where it needs to be. Sometimes, writers get to the revision stage and recognize that the work is more than they want to continue with. That’s okay, often you can still get the inherent benefits of writing a memoir even if it’s final version is a rough, unfinished draft.
But it doesn’t have to be perfect to be better.
Happy Revising!
PS. Searching the internet for writing, publishing, and book marketing advice can be exhausting to say the least! If you’re ready for hands on, one-on-one support for your memoir, check out The Memoir Method. We’d love to welcome you into this nine-month group program specially designed for women writing their first memoirs. And don’t forget, if you’d like to chat with Amanda about the program (or any other services we offer), you can book a free consult any time!
